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Mourinho acknowledged United’s improvement this season without Rooney in the starting line-up, despite the forward only having returned to training yesterday after injury.

“Rooney is injured and has been injured for two or three weeks,” said Mourinho. “I cannot do miracles at that level.

“When you don’t have a player, you have others. The team is in a good moment."

Rooney will want to end his remarkable United career on a high on Sunday, lifting the EFL Cup at Wembley before saying an emotional goodbye after 13 years.

The forward will do all he can to ensure he is fit and can claim a place among Mourinho’s subs, with the United boss said to be willing to hand his skipper the farewell he craves.

Wayne Rooney of Manchester United shows appreciation to the fans after the Premier League match between Stoke City and Manchester United (Image: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

Rooney, who has started one of United’s last nine games, trained yesterday for the first time in three weeks, with Mourinho giving a frank assessment of his skipper’s current predicament.

Opinion will be divided among fans over Rooney’s imminent departure. Those who idolise him will be sad to see him go, while a section of United’s fans cannot forgive him for twice threatening to leave the club.

The first time, in October 2010, when Rooney questioned United’s ambition in an unseemly public spat with the club and insisted he would leave when his current deal expired, the saga ended with him signing a new five-year deal.

When Ferguson stepped down in 2013 he claimed Rooney had handed in a transfer request that had been rejected, with his successor David Moyes resisting Chelsea’s attempts to sign him. Jose Mourinho was the Chelsea boss at the time.